BER Traveller facial recognition replaces boarding pass, at Berlin Airport

From left to rigjt; Albert van Veen, , Geschäftsführer of FastID, Heike Birlenbach, Head of Customer Experience, Lufthansa Group and Thomas Hoff Anderson, COO of BER. CREDIT: FBB

Berlin Brandenburg Airport is introducing BER Traveller, a digital facial recognition service of biometric access control for select airlines.  Effective immediately, Lufthansa Group Airlines Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and Eurowings’ HON Circle Members and Senators can enjoy the new service at BER. Previously, they had to show their boarding pass to get to the security control’s priority lane, but his is now no longer necessary.

Convenient and easy, these passengers now have fast access to the priority security control via a separate lane using facial recognition. The only requirement is a one-time registration of their biometric data in the service provider’s app, FastID. They will receive an invitation via email from their airline.

Traveller accessing security checkpoint. CREDIT: FBB

The Lufthansa Group and BER are expanding the range of digital services for passengers in a joint project with this new service. For its introduction, the service is initially aimed exclusively at Lufthansa Group Airlines’ HON Circle Members and Senators. The next step will be making the use of BER’s self-service machines, boarding at the gate and access to the Lufthansa Group Lounge possible via facial recognition.

Heike Birlenbach, Head of Customer Experience Lufthansa Group said, “we are improving our passengers travel experience in the long-term through contactless, biometric services since they make airport processes simpler and more efficient. I am pleased that we can now also offer this innovative service to our HON Circle Members and Senators in Berlin. Our customers greatly appreciate this new service at all locations where biometric checks have already been introduced.”

Thomas Hoff Anderson, Chief Operations Officer, Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg GmbH, states: “We are pleased to have persuaded the Lufthansa Group, one of our most important customers, of the great potential of facial recognition for smarter passenger processes at BER. This is a good basis for being able to offer the new “BER Traveller” product to other airlines’ passengers as well. FastID is the right partner to help us make departures from BER faster and easier thanks to the opportunities offered by digital facial recognition.”

The use of the new biometric service is completely voluntary. Personal and biometric data is stored decentrally in the passenger’s app. Passengers who have registered in the app decide again before each journey whether they want to use the service for the next flight. Only then will the data (flight data and biometric identifiers) and the photos taken later at the airport be transmitted in encrypted form to FastID for comparison. After the flight, the data is deleted from FastID and remains solely in the passenger’s app. Passengers have full control over the data in the app and can delete it completely at any time.

Verification at the process points is carried out by taking photos using permanently installed cameras at the process points and matching the photos with the biometric passenger data from the app (facial recognition) by FastID.

Albert van Veen, Geschäftsführer of FastID said “the implementation at BER Airport represents a new era of identity control in travel – an era that is fully decentralised and gives individuals control over their own data. With FastID, BER Airport has given passengers the option of taking back responsibility for their journey, offering biometric identification for faster and smoother travel. FastID puts the passenger at the centre of the journey, enabling a fully convenient and safe experience.”